Leperous - Slashdot User

Ocean Currents Proposed As Cause of Magnetic Field 333

Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 14, 2009 @06:03PM from the round-and-round-and-round-in-the-circle-game dept.

pjt33 notes a recently published paper proposing that ocean currents could account for Earth's magnetic field. The wrteup appears on the Institute of Physics site; the IOP is co-owner, with the German Physical Society, of the open-access journal in which the paper appears. This reader adds, "The currently predominant theory is that the cause of Earth's magnetic field is molten iron flowing in the outer core. There is at present no direct evidence for either theory." "Professor Gregory Ryskin from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Illinois, US, has defied the long-standing convention by applying equations from magnetohydrodynamics to our oceans' salt water (which conducts electricity) and found that the long-term changes (the secular variation) in the Earth's main magnetic field are possibly induced by our oceans' circulation."

Comment Re:It's my money (Score 1) 451

by Leperous on Thursday June 04, 2009 @06:35AM (#28207227) Attached to: Download Taxes As a Weapon Against File-Sharing

Wait, what? It's somehow our fault that the people we elect fail to do what they'd say they do, and instead go on to do things we *didn't* elect them to do? I think you need to explain your logic a little better.

FCC Reserves the Right To Search Your Home, Any Time 589

Posted by timothy on Friday May 22, 2009 @08:14AM from the who-are-you-to-disagree dept.

mikesd81 writes "Wired.com reports that you may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it. FCC spokesman David Fiske says 'Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference.' The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. 'It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure,' says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. 'When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.'"

Comment Re:One e-voting system for you (Score 1) 231

by Leperous on Monday July 07, 2008 @10:52AM (#24083783) Attached to: Avi Rubin Has Some Optimistic Words About E-Voting

Don't forget to add the date and time. If there is some kind of e-vote-rigging going on, it's obviously (hopefully? less likely?) not going to be happening during the hours the polling station is open. You can chuck away any votes that didn't occur when the station was open, and flag it as a problem. You can also record how many people come into the polling station, for example with mechanical turnstyles that report back to voting HQ, and link this in to the numbers of votes cast in that station during certain periods later on.

Slashdot Top Deals